problem. literally. maybe it's google. >> imtorre. now you can play president with the click of a mouse. live coverage of debate night in kentucky kicks off right now on "the cycle" for thursday, october 11th. we are laying out the vp debate fight live here at center college in danville, kentucky. today the shoe is on the other food for obama/biden and romney/ryan. last week it was the president's team facing high expectations. this week it is paul ryan who is

expected to perform well. last week the stakes were monumental for the romney team who desperately needed a strong performance to overcome weeks of mistakes, bad polls and republican hand wringing. this week it is team obama facing high stakes to stop the bleeding and quiet the lamenting of freaked out democrats who were disappointed with last week's apathetic performance. the stylistic shoe may be on the other foot as well. ryan like obama can come across as cerebral and distant. one last thing, while the pressure is on for biden, a lot is at stake for ryan too. while he is well known by inside the belt way crowd, the national audience is just getting to know ryan. his unnecessary bending of the truth sullied his reputation. this is take two for ryan to make a favorable impression and to preserve his own future

regardless of whether the romney ryan ticket. this is happening in kentucky, a state known for derby, bourbon and one of the greatest fighters, muhammad ali. we'll have the vp debate here. the timing of this one makes it feel like a main event. q famed ring announcer michael buffer. >> ladies and gentlemen, let's get ready to rumble! >> and to show you we aren't done with all of this foolish boxing stuff, i want to bring in a veteran corner man. >> i can't open my eye. >> come on. >> get me. >> no, not burgess meredith, but

howard fineman. howard, take us through, what are you expecting for this debate tonight? >> well, what i'm expecting is vice president biden to come out and repair some of the damage that the ticket took on last week in denver. i think the vice president knows that he has to answer some of the accusations that the president didn't a week ago and that joe biden has to attack on points that the president didn't do very effectively or specifically including what deductions, what end of tax credits do you want paul ryan and more important mitt romney and what about medicare? what does your plan really amount to? i think the vice president needs to be specific. he needs to focus and he will and he needs to remember that nobody votes based on the vice presidential candidates themselves. joe biden's target tonight in the end is not really paul ryan, it's mitt romney and it's the mitt romney that the president didn't successfully attack last week. >> and, howard, to that point,

has romney in some ways made paul ryan's job more difficult, not only by laying out a tax plan that fundamentally doesn't add up but also with his comments this week about abortion, first coming out saying there was no legislation that he was aware of that he would support banning abortion or curtailing abortion and then coming back and saying, i will be a pro life president and i want to defund planned parenthood? has he laid out a difficult challenge for paul ryan himself? >> i think he's laid out a difficult challenge for paul ryan on abortion, for sure. that's an issue that the democrats need to stress because of their desire to pick up still undecided female voters. it's a very interesting thing, crystal. this is the first context, i'm pretty sure it's the first in a national presidential debate where you have two people of the roman catholic faith going up against each other. joe biden is ardently pro choice and paul ryan once said there's

nobody more pro life than me. i think to the extent that joe biden highlights those differences they will be aiming at undecided female swing voters in places like ohio. that's a crucial constituency. >> howard, you say nobody goes out and votes on the basis of the vice presidential debates and that's certainly true. it seems like there's a real danger for democrats. because of what happened last week in denver, we've seen for the first time the media narrative that defines this race has turned against obama, been favorable to romney. the perception is, hey, wow, the democrats are 2-0, the republicans are 0-2. there's a risk of a loser's narrative for obama and a lot more excitement among republicans. do you see that? >> yes. absolutely. what i meant was that nobody really votes on the personality and the record of the advice

presidential candidate per se. i agree with you totally, steve. i must agree with you because that's what i wrote on the "huffington post" so i must agree with it, it's a very important debate. everybody says vice presidential debates aren't important. i say history is bunk to quote henry ford. this one really matters for the reason that you say. as crystal said, there are a lot of freaked out democrats. they need some good news. the democrat spirits are not going to be turned around by registration numbers in various states. the obama campaign put out a memo about that today. that's great for the junk kiss. that's not great or helpful to the spirit of the volunteers and so forth. joe biden needs to be seen as the winner tonight for the very reason you're talking about, the media narrative, which could be crushing if they go 0-2. >> howard, as the romney team likes to point out. joe biden has done a lot of debates. by my count, 749. no, closer to 23, but he did 14

in the last year, in 2008 alone. >> yes. >> on the other hand, he's also been vice president for the last four years. i think everyone knows that vice president's don't really get pressed a lot in those four years, you know, when something goes wrong. when something goes wrong, give me the vice president i have some serious questions for him. so i'm wondering if you think the four years of not really having to answer too many tough questions makes him a little rusty despite his years of debate experience? >> well, it made the president rusty. i think it could do the same to joe biden. although he has been working very hard. at the convention he had put in 60 hours of debate prep. what he's been paid for for the last four years comes down to this moment tonight. biden, his mind is not an

orderly one all the time, shall we say, but he's -- but he'll be tough. he's going to be defending an entire tradition and history of the democratic party because really what paul ryan is saying is to use the phrase that mitt romney use the in the debate last week, trickle down government. they're trying to discredit something they called trickle down government. it's up to joe biden tonight to begin to rebuild and to remind people that government is a cooperative exercise. people voted for social security, they voted for medicare, they voted for the people who built the modern state that we have. that's a big technical order and i think biden will be up to it. ryan has a much easier task in many ways. he can stand there and point to every negative economic statistic that's still out there, and there are plenty of them, and just repeat them over and over and over again. he's got a much easier strategic menu than joe biden does. biden's got to do a million

things at once which is, frankly, not very easy. >> howard once back in the '80s robert downey jr. was on "saturday night live" doing a sketch playing a movie critic, i'll never forget, i saw this movie, it changed my life. i saw it again and it changed it back. if this race is kind of like that to where the whole movie, the whole night changed in one night it could change back in one more night too, right? >> there's no question. i wrote a piece the other day in which i quoted a wonderful late political consultant for the democrats named paul tuly. he was an absolute genius. he told me over probably too many drinks in boston, howard, there's no such thing as straight line extrapolations in politics. you can't take two data points and draw a straight line. it's a curved interactive universe. three weeks is still a lifetime in politics. there's every possibility the

polarities will cross one more time if not more before we get to election day. >> howard fineman, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> we use lots of polls. who's up and who's down. what do they all mean? apparently even john stewart can appreciate a little poll wonkiness from the experts including our very own steve kornaki. i give you two nats and a steve. >> how the [ bleep ] are these polls so divergent, useless yet accurate and quotable? i think we all know what we need. nerds. >> so when you see obama gaining in today's gallup tracking polls that means obama's interviews were better. >> he fwrent three ahead to five ahead in their track today. >> this next round of polls from nbc marist and other polls show the swing states tied then democrats will be appropriate

for them to panic. >> nobody understands these things but you guys. >> steve, you are one of the superstar nerds. i love that. >> it's a compliment. >> you guys are so good with numbers but none of you can tie a tie. what's up with that? >> let me say this. when you're sitting home at 11:30 and you start getting texts and tweets and said john stewart mentioned you in a show. >> you get nervous. >> it could have been a lot worse than that. >> imagine the feeling when you get texts and tweets saying you're on "saturday night live." >> i'm with you. it could have been a lot worse. huge sigh of relief. >> i'm feeling a little left out, tuore. >> you're in esquire. you're a woman we love in esqui esquire. what are you talking about? >> now i'm blushing. >> all of those gentlemen have

been on "the cycle." we have nate cohn scheduled to be on "the cycle." lots of nerds. up next, more polls. the new numbers out of three states that could decide it all. good thing we have the steve of nate of nate and steve right here on "the cycle" for october 11th, 2012. welcome aboard! [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ male announcer ] now you'll know when to stop. [ honk! ] the all-new nissan altima with easy fill tire alert. [ honk! ] it's our most innovative altima ever. nissan. innovation that excites. ♪

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with everything we just talked about, obama is going to get on it. i imagine [ bleep ] is about to get real. >> i'm barack obama and i approve this message. >> it's me, big bird. >> big, yellow, a menace. mitt romney knows it's not wall street you have to worry about, it's sesame street. [ cheers and applause ] >> so we're not moving on. big bird was the big story during last week's debate, at least according to the democrats. now the battleground polls are out telling us whether mitt romney's comments ruffled any feathers among voters. according to our latest nbc poll obama holds a one point lead. ohio the gap is down to six. in virginia it's slipped for one to obama and up one for romney. the president is still ahead but

nationally mitt romney has actually taken the lead. ten days ago obama head a four point lead in that average. today mitt romney leads by more than a point. but when you look at just the swing states, president obama is leading almost every one of them albeit by a reduced margin. these are numbers just from the last states. let's put them through the spin cycle. guys, all of this raises an interesting possibility that i have resisted and that political science tells us shouldn't be happening. political science says generally speaking if there's movement nationally, there will be similar movement in the swing states. if there's movement in swing states will be mirrored in other states. mitt romney has not pulled ahead in swing states. look at a state like ohio, virginia, iowa, new hampshire, these are critical states mitt romney needs to get ahead. it raises questions about what could possibly be going on here. one possibility, swing state

polls for whatever reason, they're wrong. the national rates have it. romney is ahead. the national rates -- maybe the swing state polls are right, obama is well ahead and the national polls are mixing it up. the other possibility is there are two elections going on in the country. what we see nationally in the eight or ten critical battleground states and then there's what's going on in the battleground states. the political science research said there won't be much difference. there won't be much of a difference. we have one example. i wanted to point to this. there is one example in recent presidential history that suggests there can be two different elections. this is 1980. this is 24 years ago. this is bush versus dukakis. that is a coast to coast, just a -- >> beautiful thing. >> betsy loves that. that is a great republican landslide. but look at that in the middle of the country. iowa, minnesota, wisconsin, three states in the middle of a

republican landslide that were stubbornly resistant. what's interesting is in the mid 1980s there was the farm economy which basically collapsed in the midwest. what you had was a much worse economic environment in those states and the rest of the country, you had a republican in the white house, two terms of reagan. the voters seemed to take it out on the incumbent party in a way that didn't happen anywhere else. i'm looking at, for instance, a state like ohio where obama has been consistent. the economy is better in ohio than it is around the country. you have the auto bailout that obama put in place has clearly helped that state. could it be that he has a leg up in a state like ohio and a few others like iowa that he doesn't have anywhere else in the country and there are two separate elections? i'm seriously wondering. >> there's a point to what you're making partly because if we go against steve on the numbers we're going to lose. >> who would do that. never. >> there is definitely noise in the national number because there are states in the south and appalacia where obama's

numbers are depressed and other states where it's closer. all of that factored into the national numbers doesn't factor into the states. when you just look at ohio which romney has to have, there is a path to victory for romney without ohio, but it is very difficult. obama is still up despite all the volatility and all the movement of last week, obama is still up one to three points depending on the pole in ohio. if obama gets ohio he is basically on the one yard line and romney would have to win wisconsin or nevada and iowa. in wisconsin obama is over 50% up 2 poir.5 points. in iowa up three points and gallup's approval number for obama is 52%, which is extremely healthy. there are still extremely strong and healthy numbers for obama throughout to look at. >> steve, i want to direct your

attention to a couple of other numbers. one as real clear politics points out, erin mcpike story, the early and absentee voting numbers are looking good for romney. republicans are surpassing democrats in half of those key states. republicans request for early and absentee ballots are up in colorado and florida and north carolina so i think maybe you could see some tightening over the next couple of weeks that the polls haven't been able to account for. what i want to ask you about are two indications that independents have changed their minds a little bit. in virginia, according to that nbc journal marist poll, in virginia which has been deadlocked for independents has independents up for romney 50 to 42% and in ohio which romney has been down, romney leads among independents 49 to 41. what do you think that means

like a group of independents in a swing state flip-flops, you know, a matter of eight points or something in a matter of two weeks? >> yeah, i think the rate is two possibility. the obvious one is the independent voters are changing their minds. this is what i talked about with the median narrative takes hold. romney's had a winner's narrative. maybe that sways these voters. the other thing is we talk about this in the show a lot where you have this term independent voters. it's frequently misunderstood. a lot of them are republicans. they're really democrats. they like to call themselves that. what we've seen in the last week is there's a lot more enthusiasm now on the republican side than there was before. it may be that there's more independents who are republicans who are saying -- >> when you see this kind of flop among independents, do they generally commit or can they flop back? >> no. to the extent that this is related to enthusiasm, what you had was the republicans leading the enthusiasm game over the

summer. they improved in september from the enthusiasm standpoint. maybe now shifting back. >> crystal, what have you got? >> well, going back to what steve was saying about how the local economic numbers are having an impact in the battleground states, i would say that the local campaigns that are being run are also making a difference. if you take a look at those latest swing state numbers in ohio, there was almost one in five voters who had already cast their ballots in ohio and the president had a large margin, a large lead among those voters, 63 to 37%. that on the ground campaign matters. now it looks like the president is running a stronger on the ground campaign while romney has been doing reboot after reboot and trying to find out what his message is, the president has been banking voters. they've been holding these get out the vote rallies. michelle obama spoke at one recently and let's take a listen. >> here in ohio it is already election day. [ cheers and applause ]

>> already election day. early voting starts today! today! >> she then went on to actually a marching band led the crowd down the street to the polling station, which is sort of amazing. so they are banking votes. and i think maybe that's giving them a sense of confidence despite the president's lackluster debate performance, that they've already locked in some of the lead that they've enjoyed. >> no, that's interesting. a personal editorial comment here. i'm all for making it easy to vote. this early voting thing, it's gotten out of control. make it a little tighter closer to the election. >> what? >> i don't want people voting before the debates are held. >> i'm with steve. >> i thought you were being sarcastic, steve? >> how are you for expanding the franchise? >> i'm all for it but i think we can do it in a way that -- you know, let's have these debates, then let's have people voting. they can still vote early. >> but there are so few people

who are undecided anyway. you're not going to change your mind because of the debates. >> something good happened in the last month. >> you didn't change my mind. straight ahead in the guest box, a former lawmaker goes a long way back and tells us what to expect with joe biden, the debater. live coverage of the vice presidential debates continues here on "the cycle." i'm only in my 60's... i've got a nice long life ahead.

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>> in addition to his uncontrolled verbosity, biden is a gaffe machine. can you reassure your voters in this country that you would have the discipline you need on the world stage, senator? >> yes. >> you will support the democratic nominee no matter who that nominee is. >> hell, no.

i wouldn't support any of these guys. >> my dad used to have an expression. he said, champ, when you get knocked down, get up. i love that man. tonight he'll try to take a page from his dad's playbook and he'll sync under the president's lackluster performance. our next guest goes way back with joe biden and can give it to us straight. if joe biden is the biggest political name to come out of delaware in a generation, former congressman mike castle is likely the second biggest. he served as the state's governor for eight years and two terms as delaware's lone congressman only to be defeated by one christine o'donnell. oh, yeah, remember her. former republican congressman and governor mike castle. thanks for being with us, governor. >> thank you. it's a pleasure. >> so what is your take? you've watched joe biden over a number of years. i'm sure you know him quite well. what do you expect out of him

tonight? >> well, i believe that joe is going to be extremely feisty tonight. i think he has followed all the press and the write-ups of the obama debate presentation which is viewed rather negatively by virtually everybody, and i think he's going to be amped up. i believe he is going to come hard on perhaps some of the issues that obama did not come hard on, but he is going to be dealing with another individual who is very qualified in a debate format. paul ryan is a bright guy. he probably knows the numbers dealing with the budgetary problems with this country better than any of the people running for office this year, either at the presidential level or even in the congressional or senatorial level. he will be, i think, ready for the game too. so it should be a very interesting debate. joe, i know, has been home here in delaware rehearsing,

practicing the last three or four days. i assume that paul has been doing the same. i look forward to an interesting hour and a half. >> governor, it feels a little weird not to call you congressman, i am used to that. governor is your higher title. we'll go with that. >> whatever. >> major. one of the things themes that mitt romney pressed is this idea that president obama failed on his promise to transform washington, failed to govern in a bipartisan way and was too partisan and polarizing. what struck me when i heard that from mitt romney last week was that this basically was the republican legislative strategy from the minute that obama became president, it was to oppose him sort of unilaterally on everything so that he would not have bipartisan successes, so that his actions would look controversial, so that his pole numbers would drop and so that the presidential nominee, mitt romney, would be able to stand up four years later and bemoney how barack obama failed to

change washington. that is my read on what happened. i'm wondering, if romney ends up winning this election and republicans have a employed that strategy, won back the congress and the presidency, does that create a model to make governing impossible in this country? >> well, the governing is going to be more difficult in the future. i think there's some truth to that. it needs to be a -- remember that when president obama became president he did have a democratic house and senate, perhaps not the 60 votes but he had, you know, the votes necessary to control things in the congress of the united states. he had some problems there as well. i mean, if i were to be critical of the president and maybe not be my place to do so, but if i were, it would be along those lines. i don't think that he has done a particularly good job of communicating with either party. i was there on the floor of the house when they were doing the obama care legislation and there was a lot of grumbling. i'm not talking about just those

democrats that voted against it. there was a lot of grumbling from the other democrats that the white house had not been very flexible in terms of working things out with them. i can tell you as a moderate republican that i was at the white house and we had a session with rahm emanuel and the president told us he should communicate with us on these issues, particularly health care, and that never really happened either. i think that's a bit of a problem with this presidency. not just the president but the entire administration in terms of the not being flexible enough to reach out to the other side. i would hope if romney is elected or even if obama is elected to a second term that that particular president is going to reach out and try to pull together the diverse elements and govern better. it's not a question of republican or democrat, it's a question of what are we doing to help the people of the united states. that's the approach we have to take. it's the president that has to make that case. i theep will happen in the next

term. >> governor, i think it's a little difficult to blame the president for these things when on day one the republicans were saying we're going to obstruct him on everything from the postmaster general who will be nominated for that to the jobs bill. it seems as steve laid out there is a very clear strategy to keep this president from getting anything he wants and making everything take much longer with the express purpose of ruining people's feelings about congress and, thus, returning to the party that's anti-government. this is very difficult to blame on the president when they decided to do this before he even is fully inaugurated. >> i just don't buy that argument. you're probably right that some of those things are articulated, but there are a number of republicans who did not necessarily believe that. it was not just simply a function of obstructionism by republicans, it was also, i believe, an administration which did not have the game plan to go and try and turn that around. there's not a single governor i

know of in this country who's had a mixed legislature. most governors have who has not had to deal with that. many have been successful in terms of working with the other side and eventually turning them around or perhaps even going to the public, going to the media and saying, look, i'm going to give a speech and it's going to be about the need to cooperate and i feel republicans or democrats, whichever it may be, needs to do more to be helpful in this process. it just didn't take place. i'm not blaming the president solely. i believe there was too much opposition from some of the republican side but i don't think that president obama did a particularly good job of trying to turn it around and that, i think, handicapped his efforts to have a successful agenda. >> governor, i want to bring it back to joe biden. you have some intell. do you think he's going to run in 2016? >> yeah, that's a very good question. i've asked people and i wonder myself. i don't know if i've ever talked

directly to joe about it. he'll be in his 70s. he, as far as i know, is in good health. i just simply don't know. i guess a lot of it depends upon this election. if he continues to be vice president, i would think he would be in a stronger position. maybe i'm wrong about that. maybe he's better off being out of office. he says he has not dismissed that possibility so i think it is distinctly a possibility. i really don't know who else the democrats would run. apparently hillary clinton is sort of talking in terms of not running. if that's the case, i just don't know who else would step up to compete with him. we'll see how it goes. but i'd call that one 50-50 at this point. >> all right. thanks. >> former congressman mike castle, thanks so much. straight ahead, you've heard of fantasy football. how about fantasy economic policy teams? oh, yeah, the nerding out never

stops. and toure plays president of his dream team of economic advisors. that's next. gecko (clearing throat) thank you, mr. speaker, uh, members of congress. in celebration of over 75 years of our government employees insurance company, or geico...as most of you know it. ...i propose savings for everyone! i'm talking hundreds here... and furthermore.. newcaster: breaking news. the gecko is demanding free pudding. and political parties that are actual parties! with cake! and presents!

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we can't get through a day like this without talking about baseball, did you? last night was one of the most exciting nights within a week. with the yankees down 2-1 to the orioles in the ninth inning, manager joe girardi showed the ka hone yis of a champion where he pulled alex rodriguez and he sent out raul ibanez. >> yankees won in extra innings. that ball is driven to right and we are tied. >> ibanez is 40 but he's not too old to put the team on his back. he wasn't finished. let's go to the bottom of the 12th. >> in the bullpen.

>> can he do it again? he did! >> the yankees win. the yankees win! and i'm not even done. out in oakland the a's face elimination against detroit but the scrappy no-name athletics fought back. >> this will be a base hit. he's coming around and the oakland a's will live another day. game five is tomorrow! >> "the cycle" will of course keep you updated in all the highlights of this promising yankee postseason fun because they're "the cycle's" favorite team. >> what's happening? where are we? >> this is the show you are told for sports news. tonight you have nats/cardinals, a's tigers and the final game of the series with the yankees and

the cardinals. can we dip into that game for a minute, brian? no? okay. >> where am i? >> calm down. >> what's happening right now? i don't understand. >> from real baseball to a brand new fantasy league for wonks. reuters breaking views is putting down a page where you can assemble an economic team you can do one for obama and the other guy, romney. we have five categories, budgeting, finance, job creation, legislation and international. i put together a dream team for obama and another one for the other guy for whatever reason. there was little less dreamy. maybe i'm not quite doing it right. luckily we have the man behind the game to help us. friend of the show, rob cox. america's editor. and apparently reuters breaking views. let me break down the team that i put together with is all nepotism all the time because that's how hiring should be.

i picked bloomberg. i've met him a number of times to be the treasury secretary. i picked austin gould to be a brilliant guy. national economic council. we went to high school. jared bernstein for fed reserve chair, he, like you, friend of the show. and cheryl sandberg because she seems like a super woman and facebook is awesome. >> did you pick one for the other guy that you won't name? >> i did pick a team but i didn't write it down. >> no, for the wild card. >> sandberg was a wild card. >> you have four positions. you have some of the right ones, the ones i would pick. mike bloomberg, he scores very high. we scored all the candidates. 70 different people. mike bloomberg scores high in all of those counts, right? you want to put him in. i don't know if he'd want to be treasury secretary. that would be working for other people. i thought you could propose him as budget czar in the wild card. the other guy, not just obama, could choose him to do that. that would be an interesting way to reach across the aisle and

get something done. >> what do you want people to get out of playing this game? it's fun and a little educational. what is the point? >> really educational, right? it's really fun. no. the truth is i want people to focus on the economic issues. it's all about the debates. the country does face a lot of really serious fiscal issues. if not immediately, although we have created this artificial crisis in the fiscal cliff. it's really boring. people don't want to necessarily focus on how to make entitlement spending work. what do i care about 30 years if i'm 50? maybe it doesn't matter. so the economic team is really important to fixing this. and it's my view basically whoever wins, whether it's obama or romney, is basically going to have one big docier flopped in their lap. it's either we've gone over the fiscal cliff and have you to deal with it in reverse, or we've kicked the can down the road and done a patch that gets

us to july 4th to be patriotic and we have another physical cliff to not go over. to do that you have to reach across the aisle and work with democrats and republicans to get something done. so that, to me, is sort of day one even though i've heard a lot of promises from both sides, particularly from the republican side, about what they will do on day one. >> so i plugged in obama's current economic team. i plugged in geithner and sperling and bernanke. i chose the wild card. i came up with a pretty high number. i got a 68. that's a good number. economy is not so great. things are not looking so good. so how is this economic team performed so well in your test? >> that's a very good question. it's about experience. the five things, how are they -- how do they score on these things? if you had looked on job creation, they had scored poorly. >> that explains it. >> i mean, that's a very good

point. it's difficult to find, you know, anyone. in fact, no one gets 100. there's no way to get 100. >> is there a way for romney to beat obama though? i tried that too. it was very difficult. >> you can do it. in fact, the average score is 13.4 for republicans and democrats. >> okay. >> that's the average. >> those numbers were very high. >> you know why, it's about experience. if you've been out of running these agencies being in the federal reserve chairman or running the treasury for a few years, you might be a little rusty in terms of the wheels of government, right? but if you put in someone like -- like bernanke scores high. i know people disagree with bernanke's policies. in my dream team i would say keep bernanke. he's the guy that did the trade, let him unwind it. for his own legacy, he should want to do it. he does score high. it is difficult to find a good fed chairman from the republican side. maybe i'm just -- maybe i didn't find the right people.

>> rob, you talk about geithner scoring high. geithner's made it clear he's leaving when this term is over, whatever happens to obama. >> treasury secretary. >> let's seau bomb ma is re-elected. one thing that strikes me is the criticism from the left is he had too many people like geithner on the administration. too many people all over the crisis that he inherited. not a different approach to how to fix the economy. it seems to me with geithner leaving you have a fundamental choice if obama is re-elected for the treasury secretary. the name you proposed is erskine bow bowles. we're going back to the grand bargain. raise the retirement age. medicare is on the table. maybe some tax table that reduces the overall marginal rates. there would be a lot of pressure, i would argue justifiable bli from the left, to junk that approach. focus on the demand side and more focused on tax fairness.

a real decision for obama to make if he's re-elected. >> right. one of the big mistakes that the obama administration says, they didn't have enough of the private sector organization. the one way i would propose to deal with that is put in someone like larry fink. people will scream, oh, my god, wall street. someone who's actually been in the trenches hiring and firing. you need somebody who's done that. >> speaking of the trenches, when you redo this game can you make it a foreign policy so we can do risk and attack on the country. >> thank you very much. up next, if you've ever wanted to see steve kornacki in high school, just wait. [ chuckles ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ honk! ] ♪ [ male announcer ] now you'll know when to stop. [ honk! ] the all-new nissan altima with easy fill tire alert.

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innovation that excites. and every day since, two years ago, the people of bp made a commitment to the gulf. we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy -- and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. we've shared what we've learned with governments and across the industry so we can all produce energy more safely. i want you to know, there's another commitment bp takes just as seriously: our commitment to america. bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year. bp invests more in america than in any other country. in fact, over the last five years, no other energy company has invested more in the us than bp.

we're working to fuel america for generations to come. today, our commitment to the gulf, and to america, has never been stronger. so that happened. searching the phrase completely wrong in google images brings up a page full of mitt romney photos. it's the result of romney's own statement regarding his 47% remarks. a google spokesperson confirms the results were not intentional but the result of normal google analytics. tonight's vice presidential debate is bound to be good television but last night it was all about the return of the greatest show ever and the return of an average --

archnemesis. >> what's going on duck boys? what about it dimples. >> nobody calls me dimples anymore. >> really? because i just did. >> that's phillip mcmillen. he challenges the brothers to an old-fashioned lawnmower race. what could possibly go wrong? >> you ever won any of these? >> yeah, i win them all. if you boys are interested you mate want to meet me up there for a little race on saturday night. >> are you challenging me? >> if you all can put something together. >> you can talk any red neck into a challenge. >> i'll beat the crap out of you. >> that's why so many red necks die in such strange ways. because he would rather be dead than disrespected. >> oh, that show is awesome. check it out wednesday nights. finally a cycle fan with an artistic touch. i think steve kornacki takes top prize. after all, his bangs are

awesome. all right. there are going to be plenty of political pundits buzzing around the debate tonight along with krystal. some you may recognize from a different time. buzz feet went retro with photos of the some of the most political minds all those years ago. we thought we'd take a look at a few of them. so, guys, we're going to put them up on the screen -- >> some day. >> some day. there you can see our good friend howard fineman then and now. there's our own chuck todd. can you believe it? what a difference facial hair makes. >> wow. >> and sean heilman with hair. amazing. and finally our own andrea mitchell who always looks pretty no matter how large her shoulder pads are. okay. so we're just over five hours away from that vice presidential debate in danville and we'll get a check on the final preps from

krystal live in kentucky next. don't go anywhere. at 33 years old, i was having a heart attack. now i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i didn't know this could happen so young. take control, talk to your doctor.

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we are back here in dan vim, kentucky, just five hours away from tonight's vice presidential debate. before we go, let's get some final thoughts first from my fellow cyclists in new york. >> krystal, the old man, joe biden, hugely experienced. i think he's going to dominate the young wonk. >> i'm going to go on a limb and call tomorrow's postgame analysis a draw. going to give it to both of them. >> i'm going to give an apology to two kids i grew up with. we were going to play an

embarrassing video of me from high school -- >> there he is! >> we had technical difficulties -- well, we needed context for that. anyway -- >> there he is! >> maybe we'll show -- wow, okay. wow. >> i don't think any context is required for that whatsoever. >> it gets better. >> all right. well, i think the question for paul ryan this week is moderate mitt showed up last week with the president. he managed to sound moderate even though his policies are so far to the right. i think paul ryan is going to try to show up tonight as practical paul but i think joe biden is going to be ready for him. i'm excited to watch. that does it for "the cycle" today and we will have full debate analysis tomorrow. martin picks things up from here. martin, i miss you. >> that's very sweet of you, crystal. good aeft. it's thursday, october 11